Here’s what I think. The younger ones are full of shit. I bet I was one too when I was younger… just didn’t see it.

It’s exactly like a car accident.

You don’t realize that you’ve matured until you’ve already made the wrong decision.

Maybe it’s the fact that older women have already been hurt by what they think was best for them that they tend to look for the illusion of stability of the mind in men.

Maybe it’s the fact that I tend to disregard music, fashion, and the whole nine yards of delayed teenage bullshit that our culture’s majestically bestowed upon us with all its nonsense.

It’s probably the same reason why wearing Reebok slippers was “against store policy” in 1996 when it was already a trend on its way down abroad. The same reason why Michael Jackson only came to Egypt in the nineties and why Egyptians only liked Clinton when he left the office.

We are slow.

We prefer to keep the irrational mindset of teenage garbage way into our thirties.

We, we, & we. I, I, and myself. Where your worst habit may be biting your fingernails or smoking, mine must be speaking as if I know it all. It’s been a habit of mine ever since I learned how to think for my own. I don’t read a lot, not the way I used to. I like to analyze things though.

I used to be such a great listener. I could listen to people for hours. I actually used to care about what they had to say. It was as if the world’s ended and we’re the last two people on the planet with nothing else to do but share voices that meant something.

I don’t listen anymore. I nod. I’ve become a great nodder. The illusion of being intrigued has become a skill that I devote to the ranting of others. When they talk, I don’t even hear static; just a big blank to be filled later by my good friend advice. I don’t even drift elsewhere. I’m right there, but my mind’s dozed off to a cell phone silent mode with nodding posing as my vibrating asset.
Distractions. Distractions. Distractions.

When I was 8 years old I had the same problem at school. The teacher would talk and I would nod, pretend that I’m the good little boy who’s gonna get straight A’s and all the green stars in the world, make it to med school, become a great doctor, cure cancer, and die a happy man who’ll be remembered as the man who did it all.

I tend to give the wrong impressions.

The truth is I wasn’t listening, disconnected from sound waves of all kind.

I have been blessed with “familiar eyes”, the eyes of a person who’s probably a friend’s best friend whom you’ve probably met at a random party a few years ago. I unconsciously delude them into opening up. Like those antivirus programs that they trick into believing they’re our last line of defense when all they do is count files; like they’re debiting our credit cards all-for-us.

I can’t even begin to know how to have an opinion about that. Reminds me of how I felt when I used to turn on Al Jazeera channel and watch them bomb the hell out of Afghanistan and Iraq. How they could blast off an entire country, kill thousands, just to find one man in an attempt to bring the “promised freedom” still confuses me; like me when I was ten and trying to learn the Pythagoras theorem. How they’ve managed to pour our hearts out for the sake of the 9/11 victims yet totally throw all the Afghani and Iraqi victims into the shade terrifies me. Theatricals work.

War on Iraq, Afghanistan… on air… I’d say that’s the most expensive snuff film ever made.

Yet the world remembers 9/11 followed by Saddam’s execution… The years in the middle have been shut out. Have we all been bad listeners?

Unfortunately, in real life I suck at theatricals. Even though I am familiar with the things they want to hear, I still can’t find it in myself to say it out loud. Maybe I just want to keep them guessing, to keep them wondering what kind of flesh I hold underneath my camouflage skin. I-do-not do it on purpose. I have unwillingly become the other extreme of showing off. The I don’t care what you think extreme.

Love me for what I am. Make the effort for it is worth it.
Is it?

My social skills have returned to ground zero.
I lie about it on my resume. Maybe that’s why I suck at interviews.

Tell me a little bit about yourself. Describe yourself in five words. Where do you see yourself in five years?

It’s like they’ve all graduated from the same lousy interviewing school. Anybody could have prepared a witty answer to swift their feet off the fucking ground.
I ain’t doing it.
Here’s the truth. I never could describe myself. I can’t see myself in five years.
What if I hated your company, your job… and quit?
What if I hated your guts?
Should I lie about it to get the job?
Should I lie to get to where I want?
Should I lie to get married?
Should I have lied to myself?
Am I just that honest?

If I was allowed to honestly describe myself… in one word, I’d say priceless.
Hate me all you want for I have failed to benefit from doing otherwise.

I’ll just cruise through the crowds in hope to keep my “good impressions” for myself.

O Dark Prince of my existence, tip me off to a brighter day, let me be.
My ears point at my own ranting now, like unstoppable ravings of a fluent tongue. If only they could stop listening.
I know for sure they must stopped reading, but if only I could stop typing.
My confessions are an endless stream that I swim through alone.

My dark swimming partner, your company terrifies me.